Thursday, November 25, 2010

Cooperation

Afternoon car-rider duty at school is pretty simple: hang out with the kids at the back of the school while they get picked up and taken home. There's rarely any drama beyond the occasional phone call by a "forgotten" child. "I was supposed to pick you up? I thought your dad was going to pick you up! I'll be right there!"

Therefore, it was quite surprising when we heard the screams, and saw the group of kids leap from the ground and scurry about ten feet away from where they'd been sitting in the grass. "Problem?" a teacher asked.

"SNAKE!!!!!"

And indeed there was. A snake had slithered over, probably hoping to help with homework, but had been soundly rebuffed. He was beautiful, and very calm, although none of these qualities seemed to endear him to the kids. "Are you gonna kill it?" "Um, no, but I think I'll take it home so no one else decides to do just that."

The agreeable snake stayed in one spot while I dashed into the building and got a big cardboard box from the storage room. Then we tackled the problem of how to get him into the box. "We could pick him up..." No one was volunteering. Almost as a joke, I asked "What if we just put the box on the ground and nudged him. Think he'd just crawl in?" I got a solid round of "Yeah, right" looks, but when I put the box down and nudged the snake with my foot, he slithered right inside. All of the yeah-righters were wide-eyed with awe. I was pretty amazed: how often does wildlife do what you want?

No fighting, no hissing. What a good snake!

The box was rather shorter than its meter-long occupant.

Shy snake doesn't want to come out after relocation.

The snake came home with me, and was released into the backyard on the edge of the woods. He was reluctant to leave the box but he did finally slide out into the grass, then into the leafy floor of the woods, where he vanished.

Handsome snake! Thanks for the ID, Jason - saved me from asking the question. Joy, this must have been a great learning experience for the kids - they saw that you were not afraid, and learned that you don't need to kill snakes on sight.

Beautiful snake...I had a similar reaction from a group of young students once whilst on a walk in the woods..."SNAAAAKE!!!" It was a 5-foot-long black rat snake. Also very lovely and cooperative. They're gorgeous critters.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! And what a strike of luck that you were there - so many people (especially children, it seems) subscribe wholeheartedly to the saying that the only good snake is a dead snake. It drives me nuts.

rebecca, I think they're parroting their parents. I hope to give them a different view. I actually have had a mom tell me that she started to smush a spider in the bathtub, "...but Ashley threw a fit because of you, and we had to put it in a cup and throw it in the backyard.."